Steve Shaffer

Steve Shaffer

Operating Partner – COLORADO

Steve Shaffer is an Operating Partner with Building Industry Partners.  He has been an executive in the fire and life safety industry since 1985.  During his career Steve has successfully recruited and teamed with some of the most talented people in the industry.  He developed a reputation for building and monetizing companies that had an employee focused culture and were considered premier employers.

In 1995 Steve became the owner of GFP Fire Protection, the second largest fire protection company in Southern California.  After increasing revenue 4x and EBITDA 20X over a 5 year period, in 2000 GFP sold to its largest competitor, Cosco Fire Protection, a private equity owned company.  In 2001 Steve was named president of Consolidated Fire Protection, the parent company of Cosco Fire Protection and its sister company Firetrol Fire Services.  During his tenure as president of Consolidated he transformed the company from a hard-bid fire sprinkler company to a full service fire and life safety provider and started a national accounts program.  He also rebuilt the management team, hiring numerous executives at Cosco, Firetrol and Consolidated.  Revenue and EBITDA grew from $75 million and $6.1 million to $150 million and $12 million respectively largely due to aggressively adding new greenfield operations.  In 2005 Steve led the sale of Conslidated Fire Protection to the private equity firm Gryphon Partners for what at the time was an industry record multiple.

In 2009 Steve founded Impact Fire Services (currently AI Fire Protection).  He hired and partnered with the leading executives in the fire and life safety service space and the industry’s premier national accounts executive. From 2009 to 2014 Impact opened 8 full service greenfield operations in Texas and in 2012 acquired national accounts provider Academy Fire Protection.  Revenue grew from $0 in 2009 to over $70 million in 2016.  In early 2017 the company was rebranded to AI Fire Protection and sold to Audax for an industry leading multiple.

Since 2017 Steve has advised a variety of private equity firms and has been involved in various capacitates with many of the industry’s major transactions during that period.  Throughout his career Steve has been involved with numerous educational and philanthropic organizations.  Steve has a BA from Olivet Nazarene University and a MBA from the University of Southern California. He and his wife of 35 years, Linda, reside in Denver, Colorado.